User Reviews

Overall Rating:

Value Rating:

Submitted by
SDB
a Audio Enthusiast

Date Reviewed: November 13, 2013

Bottom Line:

Bad machine! Don't buy!
I bought two 540C. They both started rotating between all sorts of problems from Tray getting stuck, Tray not closing, Not being able to read a perfectly healthy disc etc. In fact a third one was tested and showed the same symptoms.

This is a machine that is in reality no where near where its supposed to be. These things should be more reliable than cheap mainstream stuff, Not the other way around.

If you are considering a cambridge audio machine, they are no good. They may have a few advantages in terms of specs. But they are not worth the hassle.

I still have one of those things and enjoy giving it a hard knock to make the tray do what it's supposed to.

The Cambridge Audio 540C might be dissapointing if you dont do the following things-

-Let it play for about 200 hours before making assessment

-Use really good interconnects.I bought some $200 osborne cables and the sound improved %200.IN particular bass became much more defined and powerful.

-When turning off with no cd in it wait about 5 secs with empty tray before turning off.Some thing goes awry otherwise .i had to get it repaired when I did not do this.Hey-an eccentricity in a low mid player!HIgh end credibility?!

I bought a used 540C on Ebay for $102.00, shipped, back in early '09.
It was mated to an old Arcam AVR100 and Monitor Audio RS-6 speakers, Straightwire MusicCable IC's and AQ Jade Hyperlitz speaker cables.

I wasn't happy with the CD performance of my BluRay player, a Pany BD35, so I figured I'd try a dedicated CD player aimed a little higher than the Best Buy crowd. The CA 540C was the first candidate that popped up on 'the bay' at the right price for experimenting.

I liked the the 540C immediately, it was a great improvement on the BluRay player and my old $39 DVD player, not that that says much, LOL!
I'm not up on all the lingo, but here we go!
I noticed an immediate improvement in clarity, imaging and soundstage. The first CD was some Nightwish (with the new singer). Her voice can be pretty harsh but the 540C didn't do anything to make matters worse. As a matter of fact I found myself cranking up the volume pretty darn loud on the track 'Eva', very nice indeed.
Next was some old Bela Fleck, the UFO TOFU CD. It was terrific, like the first time I heard it. Here's where I started noticing how the deep bass rolls off with this player. It wasn't actually unpleasant, but things just didn't seem as full as they could be.
Next was The Bad Plus' 'These are the vistas' CD. This CD has a really nice 3D sound stage and the 540C did pretty well I think, especially for a hundred bucks. The acoustic bass on track two sounded great! I think the somewhat light bottom of the 540C worked well on this whole CD, at least in my mostly Ebay sourced system.
Next up was Saint Saens 3rd symphony. I loved the way all the layers of the orchestra were crearly represented, and I was really surprised by the piano flourishes during the first movement, I could barely hear them before. The 540C also handled the deep bass notes of the organ in a, um...tasteful way. I think the light bass response actually sounded kinda nice since my speakers start rolling off south of 38 Hz anyway. But WTF, one likes this bit of music for the HUGE organ of the final movement, so if you have a system that can do that kind of extension ($$$), you're probably not looking at this CD player anyway.

So while I'm well aware of the issue of a somewhat lite bottom end on the 540C, everything that is there in that region is very nice and tight. I like the thing anyway. Like a great looking girl with a skinny little butt.
I still have the 540C, it's in a secondary system with bass challenged 'lifestyle' speakers. Sounds great while listening to Jazz with dinner.
Even though it was replaced and outclassed in every possible way by an Arcam DV-79, I still genuinely like the 540C. I like it so much that when it died a month ago, I blew a hundred bucks for a new transport.

This player does not do low frequencies. After 1.5 years of trying to like it, and only recently enjoying it by turning the bass on my Nad t741 amp up to 8, I've decided I've had enough. It sold on ebay last night, and I'm getting a Nad T542 today.
I muddled through, pretending to like it for a year, convinced that I was just being nooby, and that I had to re-adjust to this more refined player. The penny dropped when I bought a £150 dvd player from Cambridge Audio last week, which was just rubbish on every front, and utterly, utterly outclased by a philips cd player I had bought for £30 but which had broken due to wear and tear from kids.

I purchase this CD player to replace an aging 18 year old carver TL-3300. My system is made of a pair of Vandersteen 2CE, an Audio Refinement Pre-5 and a Bryston 3B amp. I wanted to replace this carver CD player which was the weak link of my system. I did a research on the web and this CD player appears to be the best performance/price performer.
I bought it and gess what, my CD player is still the week link of my system!
Build quality if fine, so is the design and functionality. The sound definition and imaging are pretty good but the medium-high frequency way to agressive, it make listening to music at high volume a painfull experience.
What hurts is that I recently bought a budget DVD player (LG LGD435) which compared avantagely to this Cambridge Audio 540C!
I try to tweak my system and play with different interconnect cables to try to improve things but so far, I'm not impressed.

Related Azur 540C Forum Posts

I've read some of your posts concerning a similar decision I'm facing. I too spent the day auditioning 4 cdp's.
Azur 540
Azur 640
NAD 521BEE
Arcam CD62T
Immediately the NAD was out, to my untrained years it had a muffled sound compared to the other. A&B'ing the 540 and 640 I did notice a ... Read More »